Windows 7 RC1 download opens

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 is now available for public download.

The software giant warned surfers that the demand could be high, as when the Windows 7 beta was launched, and urged those planning to download it to be patient.

You can download Windows 7 RC1 from the Microsoft website.

However, Microsoft is advising that only confident surfers download the feature-complete version of its next operating system, as no technical support will be provided.

Last week, Microsoft's Leila Martine said that Windows 7 RC1 was "not for the faint of heart".

Unlike with the beta version, Microsoft has promised not to limit the number of people who can download RC1, and said it would be available until at least July 2009.

The beta will expire in June 2010, though if you are still running it after March 2010 it will shut itself down every two hours.

Microsoft officially said that it expected Windows 7 to fully launch "no later than January 2010" though vendor Acer appears to have given the game away by announcing it would launch on 23 October.

You will need to burn an ISO installation disk once the download has finished and unless you have installed Windows before Microsoft doesn't recommend that you try RC1.

Your PC should have at least a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of free disk space. There are 32- and 64-bit versions of RC1.